A blog of the NYU Colloquium on Market Institutions and the Leipzig Colloquium on the Market Order

Where is the Bubble?

The monetary analysis of the housing bubble focuses on the impact of low – even negative – real rates of interest on housing demand. That theory suggests the Fed must be inflating new bubbles with its continued policy of a near-zero federal funds rate. Skeptics ask where are the bubbles?

In today’s Wall Street Journal Business World column, Holman Jenkins answers with “Plane Crazy.” He specifically points to the recently announced deal in which debt-burdened and unprofitable American Airlines will take delivery of 460 new planes. How did American pull this off?

Boeing and Airbus will share the order and each will finance a substantial portion of the purchase. “Think about it this way: Two rival banks get together and offer you a ‘no-doc’ mortgage for 115% of the value of your home,” writes Jenkins. He characterizes this as an opportunity for a “go-for-broke shot at a turnaround” for American. It’s an offer the airline could not refuse.

There are an ample number of other candidates for a bubble: gold, oil, farmland in the Midwest and perhaps the S&P. The entire world is awash in cheap dollars and much of the impact of the Fed’s policy has been to inflate bubbles overseas. That can be seen directly with the AA deal. More than half the order is going to Airbus, a European company.

The Fed’s easy-money policy was supposed to stimulate the U.S. economy and produce jobs for Americans. Fed policy has produced prosperity and jobs, just not in the United States.

6 thoughts on “Where is the Bubble?”

Are we seeing some sort of a backdoor bailout for AA? I used to give the back of my hand to conspiracy theories, but I’m feeling more paranoid now that we full-on crony capitalism. Jenkins says, “On paper, this week’s plane deal looks a bit like a Boeing-Airbus ‘coopetition’ project to keep American afloat and outfit it with duopoly jets.” (Boeing is the #2 defense contractor in the US and Airbus is pretty politicized too.) Is it a pure easy money bubble or is there some sort of state push in there too?